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theflyindutchwoman · 6 months

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There is an opinion that Chenford appeared under the influence of the audience. If I remember correctly, the showrunner once said that Lucy and Tim would not be a couple, that Chanford's popularity came as a surprise to them.

It seems to me, if not Plan A, then Chanford was plan B. The creators in the first series placed a morally broken man (a drug addict wife was prescribed to the character right away, perhaps a tyrant father too) and an empathic woman (her character was also prescribed one way or another initially) in a confined space (a police car). I don't know…

What do you think about this?

Full discloser : while I started watching the show around the time Day of Death aired, I wasn't particularly paying attention to the behind the scenes and interviews at the time. So this is probably going to influence my answer in one way or another.

You remember correctly though : Chenford was not originally planned. Here's what Alexi Hawley (showrunner) said on the subject - and I think this touches on the second part of your ask : "Tim was always designed to be a character who was much more complicated than he seemed, and Lucy was always designed to be a really strong, empathetic character, but I think [what we’ve seen] is the magic of chemistry that happens that you just can’t know when you’re writing a pilot." (source)

What really started Chenford was Eric and Melissa's chemistry… Backed by the writing and the actors' understanding of their characters. To me, it was clear that Tim and Lucy were always meant to share a special relationship for the points you covered, romance or not - which, by the way, doesn't lessen the beauty of their story in my eyes. They were always going to be the most important person in each other's lives. Bring the best in each other. Their dynamic was developed with so much love and care, with so many beautiful and emotional scenes and this, from the very beginning… Alexi himself wrote some of their key moments : their meeting, the quarantine house, Tim turning down his promotion for Lucy… to name just a few of the very early ones. But the romantic undertones? That was mostly the actors' doing, probably not even intentionally at first. And that combination, that magic, is what caught the eyes of so many, I believe.

The other thing Alexi said at the time (s3), was that Chenford would never happen, since Lucy was Tim's rookie : "Tim would never cross that line. She’s his rookie and he would never even consider crossing that line. So while I’m obviously aware that there’s a big ‘shipping there, and I appreciate any kind of passion about the show, that’s a huge line [to cross]. […] We’d be hypocrites [to write a Lucy/Tim romance] because we made it very clear in those first four or five episodes that female officers unfairly get tagged if they sleep with cops, and it’s why Nolan and Lucy couldn’t be together — and ultimately I think that was the right move. I mean, he was on the rebound from a 20-year marriage and she was 20 years his junior, and so it worked out the way it was supposed to, but if we turned around and threw [Lucy and Tim] together, that would be somewhat hypocritical.”

Now I remember reading many times that Lucy x Nolan was supposed to be endgame, but I never found any official interview : by the time I started the show, that idea was entirely buried so that may be why… But if it was the original plan, I applaud Alexi for adapting so swiftly without insulting the audience for forcing his hand. Some showrunners should take notes.

In any case, this is where this idea that he was opposed to Chenford started - at least, to my knowledge, there were probably other interviews. But in this one, this isn't exactly what he's saying. The context is very important, and unfortunately, was often forgotten in the various articles that derived over the years from his original interview. Lucy was still Tim's rookie and this is the line he is talking about. For reference, even Eric, who was already the captain of the ship, agreed with this (back in the beginning of s2) : "It’s something that Bradford would never organically do, being a superior to her." (source) (in all fairness, it does say later in the same interview that he doesn't rule it out either). And honestly… I agree with them. I enjoy reading fanfics that explore this alternative, but in the show, I'm really glad that they waited. Power dynamics are a real thing, so I appreciate that it was not just swept under the rug. And the writers unwittingly backed themselves in a corner with the reason used to break up Lucy and Nolan. They needed to explore Tim and Lucy's dynamic further first, unravel everything and wait for her to graduate. To get her to a place where she no longer cares what others might think.

But I don't believe Alexi was completely against Chenford at all : again, he wrote so many romantic moments… Case in point : the interview is from s3 and yet, he was behind that 'Save me a dance' scene… So clearly, he already had a vision for them, no matter what he was saying on the record. I personally always take these interviews with a grain of salt because the writers/actors are basically told by the different publicists/PR the main points they should address.

Now the audience probably influenced his decision, yes… The way the network made sure to bait the fans made it clear that, at the very least, they knew where to focus in the marketing department. But I don't think that was the only factor. So many shows have very strong fandom, and yet they never go further than baiting. That's actually the usual MO : bait but don't commit, since so many networks are still afraid of that infamous 'Moonlighting' curse (even though it is getting better nowadays). Abc is no exception.

At the end of the day, regardless of what was said in interviews, the showrunner and the writers still created these wonderful characters and developed this relationship in a loving manner… That's the thing that matters to me. So even if it wasn't his idea, even if he was completely against it, he at least listened to his team, to the actors, letting them improvise and even rewrite some parts. And that's actually how it should be done even if, unfortunately, this is far from the norm. I may not agree with every decisions he has made, but in that regard, I respect him for doing much better than many of his counterparts. However, I realise that this is also easy for me to say this since I'm sure I missed a lot of dramas in-between… That might have changed my perception. I hope this answers your question :)

#ask & ye shall receive #little talks #the rookie #chenford #lucy chen #tim bradford

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danvillecheese · 10 months

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the general audience versus the rest of us

this analysis is not to degrade anyone outside of or in the fandom, it’s simply to showcase how differently people remember phineas and ferb. there are a number of topics I will delve into, all of which are lovingly put into sections under the cut. so, with no further ado… enjoy!

how normal people watch it

so if you’re like me and watched pnf occasionally on tv growing up you’ll remember bits of the show. you’ll remember it’s repetitive and episodic nature, the way everything goes back to how it was at the start of the day. phineas and ferb think of something to do, candace attempts to bust them, perry fights doofenshmirtz, and doofs machine makes phineas and ferb’s invention disappear, sticking to the status quo of what linda typically sees. it’s predictable, but not in the sense that you necessarily know what’s going to happen. maybe you do, or something happens that subverts your expectations. the “typical phineas and ferb episode structure” (or TPNFES, I’m calling it that now) is how a lot of people who haven’t seen the show in a while will remember it. or maybe not. maybe they remember doof making an inator that does x. or they remember the aglet song (never forget ze aglet!). it’s typically something you’d have seen at least a couple of times during its original run.

and no, of course there’s no problem with only remembering one or two things about a show from your youth. I personally watched a lot of shows as a kid that I don’t remember a thing about. yeah I watched LazyTown when I was like four but if you asked me the plot of any episode I would NOT be able to tell you. and it’s because it wasn’t something I was really interested in. and of course, kids can be interested in shows and know a lot about them and then hit their teen years and not remember much about them later. but if they go back and absorb that content again? they see stuff they missed the first time, or stuff they definitly remember. hell, they might even sing along to A.G.L.E.T. because as everyone knows, pnf lyrics stay with you forever. (even if you haven’t heard the theme song in a decade you won’t forget the lyrics. that shit is hardwired into you from the moment you first see it.)

my point is, a casual viewer doesn’t do anything more than just… watch the show. hell, sometimes they don’t even watch it, they’ll have it on in the background while they’re on their phone or doing something else (couldn’t be me!!). watching the canon content just once gives them the satisfaction of starting and ending the show. they don’t go into detail about it. they probably won’t open an ao3 tab the moment the last episode finishes. they won’t make a tumblr sideblog dedicated to understanding the intricacies of character arcs, their goals and ideals and how they interact with others. they don’t care enough to do that bc it doesn’t make their brain go insane for more knowledge about the show. and as strange as it sounds, they don’t have it on their minds for that long. yeah, maybe theyll think about how nice the songs were in that s4 finale but after that, that’s it. they’ll move onto something else.

how I watched it

I watched phineas and ferb as a kid. I’m pretty sure I watched it when it first aired, too. perhaps not in 2007, it might have been the year after when it actually started premiering (nz airing is so far behind it’s not even funny). I watched it as it aired, and then grew out of it around the middle of s3. I got a little older, started watching different shows, and I was just generally doing other stuff. I have a vivid memory from 2012 when a kid from my class told me that pnf wasn’t worth watching bc the same thing happens every episode and my socially inept ass went “omg ur so right” and I stopped watching it. fast forward a couple of years and I hear that the show is like, actually finally ending. idk why but I remember it being in 2014, not 2015 when it actually did air (the pnf wiki doesn’t have the date for the nz airing of last day of summer so I guess we'll never know if it aired early or not) but I watched it and kinda just carried on with my other interests at the time.

around 2017, I start talking to an internet friend from the same country as me. we talked about our upbringings and stuff we used to watch on tv, and she brings up phineas and ferb. aha! I know that one! it encourages me to rewatch the show and before I know it, I’m shoulder deep. i mention facts about it to real life friends and family (“there’s a pnf episode where…”) and I go hunting for interviews and comic-con panels with the whole cast on youtube. you know how it is. I start going through the posts on tumblr and I find a sibling show of sorts – one that also has a crossover planned for 2018. I watch that show. I lurk in the shadows of the tumblr tag for a while. I start writing fic. I draw the characters on any piece of paper I can get my hands on.

it all comes to a head in october 2018, when I wrote a phinjeet fic called cappuccino, and one of my favourite artists EVER made fanart of it. and obviously, I had to put it somewhere. I’d thought about making a dwampy sideblog for ages and had no idea what to call it or anything, but this was all the encouragement I needed. I made the sideblog. I reblog the art. then I went through my likes and got some of the pnf/mml posts out. fast forward almost five years, and here we are. still just as insane, just with a new username.

in short — no, my experience watching pnf is not one of those typical of a general audience member. I mean, it would have been, if not for that fateful conversation with my internet friend that basically rebooted me and quite literally rewired my brain to be insane about this cartoon universe. I’m not by any means a casual viewer of this show. I know more than an average person would about it, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I adore this little community of ours. and being able to crack out of context jokes that come from the shows to older people who I know have never seen it, well, it’s a cherry on top.

both the GA and the fandom contribute to the culture staying alive

there’s certainly a way that the general audience keeps pnf alive, even if they have no idea they’re doing it. they’ll make very generic memes about it (you know the ones I’m talking about) and they’ll circulate the internet for a bit, reminding everyone about the show they watched casually as a kid. us, on the other hand, make very very niche memes about it. like hieroglyphics. and combovers. (see what I did there?) ours tend to stay in our little circulation, minus the ones that break containment. you get it in any fandom though, it’s certainly not limited to us.

as many times as you’ll see the posts that attempt to explain the ‘doof is phineas dad theory’, you’ll see just as many responses debunking it. or seeing dan and swampy debunk it, as they should. (honestly I think we need like crystal fucking clear evidence in the reboot to explain it otherwise it’s just gonna keep happening.)

the circulation of phineas and ferb itself through any means, be it memes or actual conversation that prompts a rewatch or even just a memory of the show, keeps the show relevant. I think one of the more notable ways this has happened is dan povenmire getting tiktok famous and basically reminding every older gen z kid about the show. to quote jeff swampy marsh – “plus there’s always reruns so the show will never die” – sure, disney channel itself barely exists anymore but reruns can also kinda be translated into disney+ rewatches or even just the passage of a meme on the internet.

phineas and ferb has stayed, somewhat, consistently relevant. I mean, think about it. since pnf started airing, there hasn’t been a year (except for 2021) where nothing has happened. pnf aired from 2007-2015, milo murphy’s law aired from 2016-2019 (which includes phineas and ferb characters so I count it as pnf content) and catu came out in 2020. dan’s own show hamster and gretel started airing in 2022, and based on the poster, I don’t think we’ll be missing any phineas and ferb characters at all. dan basically confirmed it. and truly, it’s what keeps the show alive, even when it’s not really there.

things in the show that the ga have very different opinions on, re:

candace and jeremy’s relationship

something the general audience haven’t caught up with yet is the way that candace and jeremy interact within the show. sure, if you haven’t watched it since you were 10 then you probably remember candace being like insane and loud about the boy she’s obsessed with. if you watch it again, you’ll see that jeremy is almost just as bad. it’s just downplayed because he’s not a main character. we don’t see his perspective NEARLY as much as we see candace’s, which might make it seem a bit more one sided or unrequited than it actually is.

in the episode “backyard aquarium” from early s2, we’re shown a montage of both candace and jeremy trying to ring each other for a whole day, until candace goes to bust her brothers and forgets about her phone for a little moment. this gives jeremy time to leave eleven messages for her. obsessed much? (it’s actually kinda sweet) and yeah, they’re teenagers. every feeling seems way more amplified than it actually is so both of them getting upset that they cant contact each other is pretty realistic, even if it is just played for laughs.

there’s a lot of really thorough characterisation when it comes to both of them. mostly with candace, obviously, she is THEE main character of the show so clearly she’s deep and very fleshed out. we don’t see it as much with jeremy but we get pretty good glimpses of it when it’s shown. he’s got the picture of her from “the bully code” in his guitar case. he likes her so much! he put her picture in the place he keeps one of his favourite things!! he’s down so bad for her! but of course, if you don’t actually pay attention or care especially about any of that stuff, you’re going to miss it and generalise about it. and it unfortunately applies to quite a few things in the show. sigh.

doof’s relationship with his parents

for real, fuck those guys. I think the ga are pretty aware of this part, and if you asked anyone to say what one of doofs backstories are they’d probably say “his parents didn’t show up for his birth!” or “he was a lawn gnome!”. both of which are specifically tied to his abhorrent relationship with his parents. but what they potentially don’t remember is how he still tries to gain their affections anyways. it’s the classic trope of not being able to cut off your abusers simply because you just can’t, morally. you still want to prove yourself to them and make them see you’re worth having around even if they never liked you in the first place. heinz tries very hard both in his youth and in the show itself to gain affection from both his mother and father. these include:

the teddy bear and trying to be good at kickball (thaddeus and thor)

the original gnome (fathers day)

even the fucking clip show episode from the end of season 3 (this is your backstory) where his mother comes back and he goes in for a hug and is instead greeted with a smack. hmm.

even just those examples are enough evidence that yes, heinz did actually really try with his parents even if they didn’t care. and again, it’s unfortunately played for laughs that heinz is constantly beaten down by almost everything around him but as we know, he gets a real family at the end of the show and things seem to work out well for him. does he get closure with both of his parents by the end of s4? maybe not his mother, but sort of with his dad. and yeah, maybe they’ll get into that in the reboot. but it’s definitely something the ga never noticed. it’s always about laughing at his tragic backstories, even if that is the point of them, not necessarily feeling bad for him and wanting to see him come full circle with everything that’s happened to him. and it does!

isabella and her one (1) personality trait

according to the ga, isabella garcia-shapiro is a one dimensional character who’s only personality trait is having tunnel vision heart eyes for the boy across the street. is your blood boiling yet? mine is! isabella is one of the most fleshed out characters in the show, with a large family and interests outside of phineas. hell, she’s the leader of her fireside girls troop which is a huge part of her personality. she’s brave and strong and gives ominous patch related threats to a man almost five times her age. but no, the general audience will only ever see isabella as the girl obsessed with phineas. I’m not discrediting this at all because yes, she’s obsessed with him. she’s a simp. definitely nothing wrong with that at all! but the ga claiming that it’s her only personality trait? get fucking REAL this girl is deep and gets upset and anxious and emotional about things that have nothing to do with the boy she’s in love with. even if it does have something to do with that, she carries on anyway because she’s strong as hell. it’s not the first time a character has been like that on disney channel — I mean, kim possible was pretty boy crazy but her crime fighting always came first, right? (really showing my age with that reference. wow) and I hate to reference act your age bc it’s vile but she doesn’t only ever spend her time moping over phineas as a teenager, she keeps herself busy and helps her mom at the restaurant and is an RA at her college and does a whole heap of other things! she’s multifaceted and it’s what makes her a really compelling character to watch. and watering her down into just the girl who likes phineas is a huge discredit to her character.

so, where am I going with this?

I’m not saying ever general audience member has to rewatch phineas and ferb a million times to understand every single character arc. hell, I’m not even saying that they have to rewatch it at all. there’s such a huge divide when it comes to it, and obviously not everyone is going to experience everything the same way. a lot of people simply don’t care enough to crack open the psyche of every phineas and ferb character to understand their motivations. that’s just the freaks (affectionate) who roam on tumblr, eager for media analysis of a childrens cartoon that ended almost a decade ago.

for a lot of us, it’s very satisfying to be able to analyse specific media. there’s writers and storyboard artists that put all that stuff in the show for a reason, right? it makes us want to see parallels and understand where a characters moral alignment sits and why exactly buford speaks latin. and for others, they’ll simply watch a show and move on. there’s no need for them for it to be on their brain 24/7.

overall, there’s a stark difference in the way people watch a show as iconic and culturally significant as phineas and ferb. the general audience watches it very differently to us, and that’s okay! it happens with any piece of media. there’s casual fans that watch something once and then the very not casual fans who have it on the brain constantly. and then there’s fans that have been very absorbed in the fandom and move on, which again, you’ll get anywhere. nothing about the dwampyverse fandom is limited to us, in terms of the way things go (not the source media itself. name one other show that has anything REMOTELY similar to pnf happen in it.) most people know the show, and most people don’t know about the insane and obscure facts about it, and I think it’s fantastic.

goodnight tri-state area. thank you.

#phineas and ferb #cj writes unecessary analysis abt a show that ended almost a decade ago. nothing new here #in my insane era (again)#dwampyverse analysis

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moonyinpisces · 7 months

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🥃 alternate reunion | post s2 good omens snippet

to celebrate finishing act 1 of my s3 fic how do we turn on the light? , here's the original snippet for aziraphale and crowley reuniting after s2. i had began writing this before chapter 1 was even posted, and if you've read hdwtotl, you can see how different the plot ended up along with a few key similarities. the tone of this scene for the story i was writing felt way off so i did away with 99% of it in the actual chapter, but i feel bad about it existing all lonely in my snippets doc, so. enjoy!

1.7k words. context: aziraphale has been supreme archangel for 3 years, and has received instructions from the metatron to meet with the grand duke of hell to negotiate sanctions for the second coming. aziraphale assumes that crowley's been asleep this entire time. he was wrong.

He approaches Marguerite’s, the ivy climbing the walls having died from the winter chill. He glimpses the outdoor seating, feels a flash of something—a memory of—

‘Smitten, I believe. You’re being silly—‘

Aziraphale shakes it away, blinks in rapid succession until the image fades. The interior is more or less as he remembers it, lightly Tuscan and dimly-lit enough that it made every conversation somewhat intimate. The server is unfamiliar, and Aziraphale is grateful that he’s not meant to have small-talk with someone who recognizes him. Someone that he may or may not end up recognizing back, all this time later. He requests the table up against the window at the far corner.

He purposefully doesn’t look at his bookshop through the window, can remember—the last time he was there, when—when Crowley—Snap out of it, he thinks desperately. His memories are becoming too much to contain, fragmented as they are, and it’s enough to make him wary, intensely disoriented. Perhaps it can simply be attributed to his return to Earth, but, no, there’s a feeling in the air, something unfamiliarly evil but familiarly miserable. Almost as if there’s a… badness about London, now, something miserable seeping into the concrete, cloying the smoggy air. Either that means the end times somehow already began in his absence, or—

Crowley’s awake.

The thought makes Aziraphale's unnecessary heartbeat falter, makes his hand flutter to his puff-tie and dig into the fabric. There’s no guarantee, of course, and three years is on the shorter side for the handful of times he’s slept a period of time away, but—

Through the window, Aziraphale can just see the building next door. Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death. There’s a woman—Nina, her name is Nina—wiping down the outdoor seating, stacking up the dishware following the lunch rush. He watches a familiar figure come out from inside, donned in an apron and a sunny dress, immediately reaching her arms forward to help Nina with the load. Maggie, he remembers with a rush of warmth. Nina says something to her with a crooked smile, and Maggie laughs, then tips forward to press their lips together over the stack of dirty plates between them. The gaping, dormant thing in Aziraphale’s chest lets out a slow, mournful whine. A flash of red and black passes his vision.

It all happens rather quickly after that.

First, something sharp and jagged slides between his ribs, buries into his organs, the celestial ones. He jolts, gasps, immediately pressing a hand low to his chest, grabbing at—nothing. He looks down and frowns, seeing no blood, golden or otherwise. A voice pulls him back up.

“Are you ready to order?” The waitress asks him.

“I—“ he starts, then smells it. Staticky, slight, but deep still, like—like the ocean before a storm, or the smoke after the incense has already burned off, like bourbon and he feels—he experiences it all again, every moment together in the past 6000 years, the things he poured futilely into ink and pressure to suppress, and—

When Crowley slides into the seat across from him, something fractures and mends at the same time, like re-breaking a bone. It’s all he can do to stare.

Crowley’s looking at him evenly. Crowley’s there, he’s perched in front of him like a—a materialization. It feels impossible, Crowley being here on his own volition. And now he’s raising an expectant brow, and when nothing is forthcoming he looks to the waitress, then back to Aziraphale. “Erm,” he says awkwardly. “I’ll have a double Macallan, neat. He’ll take—“ Another look. “A dry vermouth, maybe. The sweetest one you’ve got.”

His voice. Aziraphale’s fingers clench into the seat of his chair so tightly that the wood splinters.

The waitress departs. Crowley crosses a leg over his knee, leans back casually in his chair like he’s going to fall right out of it. He’s wearing a black turtleneck and a thick, dark-gray blazer. A fine maroon scarf drapes untied around his neck. His hair is identical to how it was three years ago, only—wavier. Disheveled, maybe. It’s not the worst bedhead he’s been afflicted with, in comparison to all the others. There’s dark circles just visible beneath the bottom curve of his sunglasses. He’s tilting his head imperceptibly up and down, and it takes Aziraphale a moment to understand that he’s being scrutinized right back; if Crowley has an opinion over Aziraphale’s own change of wardrobe, though, he doesn’t voice it.

“Hello,” Crowley says finally, almost politely. He has his hands folded at the curve of his knee, pulling his arms taut, and he says in a too-delighted tone of voice, “Been too long, hasn’t it?”

Aziraphale blinks. That’s the only possible movement he could make. “I—“

“—Of course, maybe it wasn’t long enough, to you,” he acquiesces with a tilt of his head, as if Aziraphale had voiced anything of the sort. His ankle is bouncing in midair. “We’ve certainly gone longer, though, haven’t we, Oh Supreme Archangel of Heaven.” He announces each part of the title distinct from each other, lips curled into a frown that looks more like a barely-schooled smile. “Who would have thought it, truly? Not me. Especially not me. You could have given me thousands of years, and I’d never have guessed this is where we’d end up.” He leans over his crossed leg dangerously. “Do I need to call you some sort of—I dunno, special biblical thing? Bow my head? Bend the knee?”

Breath rushes back into Aziraphale’s chest, and he dislodges his grip from the chair. He tries to look away from Crowley, back out the window unseeingly, but it’s as though his body can’t physically bear the absence, and his eyes snap back forward. He tries to form words that don’t exist.

The waitress returns with their drinks. Crowley barks out what sounds to be a genuine laugh, takes his whiskey and throws it back like a shot. His throat ripples beneath his turtleneck. He drops his hand back to the table with a thud, but keeps his long neck tipped back. “Fuck,” he sighs, long and slow. “Been a long time since I’ve imbibed, to tell you the truth.”

“You’re a demon,” are unfortunately the first words Aziraphale can find. They come out automatically, well-practiced. “You never tell the truth.”

Crowley drops his head back down and grins. It’s entirely teeth. He gestures towards Aziraphale with his empty glass, and says conspiratorially, “Is that what you’ve been telling yourself, then?”

Blinking rapidly, Aziraphale finally musters the ability to pull himself from his reverie. He looks down to the dry vermouth. Perfect guess, of course, though—he’s not sure he could swallow it without it coming back up. It’s been a while since he’s ingested anything. “What are you…” His voice softens. “What are you doing here, Crowley?”

It’s a hard moment, the way Crowley looks at him. His eyes are only glints behind his glasses, somehow both dulled and intensely alive. Then he sniffs, clenches his jaw and snaps to refill his drink. “What do you think?” He says tiredly, as if he’s exhausted himself of whatever charade he was trying to put on, just now. “Where else would I be? You’re here. I’m waiting for you to tell me why, by the way, though I—hah, I have a sneaking suspicion I know what it is already.”

“This isn’t—“ Aziraphale can’t look at him directly anymore, needs a moment to acclimate. “This isn’t a social call, Crowley. I’ve returned to Earth to—“

“—Make a deal with the devil?” asks Crowley, quirking a brow again.

Aziraphale frowns. He knows Hell talks, just as Heaven does, but he’s under the impression—well, Crowley had said he’d given it all up, before. An independent agent, if an agent at all. A proper human. Aziraphale eyes him from the peripheral. “How do you know that?”

Crowley freezes. His glass is suspended halfway to his mouth. “You…” His expression does something complicated. “You don’t know?”

Though he doesn’t know what Crowley’s referring to, these past three years has told Aziraphale that the answer to that question is usually ‘no’. Spending time aimlessly in Heaven has convinced him more than ever how little he truly knows. So he just shakes his head. Crowley watches him do it, eyes tracking the movement like he’s simultaneously a predator and an animal of prey.

“They didn’t tell you?” A dramatic juxtaposition to the feigned pleasantries earlier, Crowley’s expression tightens into something hard and angry, a rarely-seen darkness slithering just beneath the surface, causing his nose to twitch, his jaw to tense impossible more. He slams the glass back to the table, whiskey splashing up and over his fingers. It sizzles at the contact. His skin flashes imperceptibly, makes dark clouds roll rapidly in outside, causes the light directly above them flicker—Aziraphale has only seen him like this a handful of times before, and usually he’s nearly discorporated in what comes next, so he leans back in his chair cautiously.

But Crowley takes a deep breath. The light steadies, the sky clears. He looks away, out to the bookshop across the street, and laughs something humorlessly. There’s no clarification.

Aziraphale starts carefully, “I was told—The Metatron told me that I’m to meet with the—the…” Crowley doesn’t move. Aziraphale trails off, and that feeling returns, the one that’s fear, but comes before it still, like—like—

Oh. Oh, no.

Crowley’s still staring out of the window, tonguing at the inside of his bottom lip. His other lip is curled up, baring his bright, bright teeth. His crossed leg is now entirely flexing and unflexing with a rapid, inconsistent rhythm. And then something in his expression shutters, flattens, and he looks back to Aziraphale with his mouth pressed tightly together in a ghastly interpretation of a smile.

“Oh yes,” he says slowly, sardonically, tipping his head up like he’s basking in the realization. He holds his hand out over the table, long fingers twitching, perhaps wanting to curl into a fist instead. “Grand Duke of Hell, at Lucifer’s service. Can we begin?”

Dread, Aziraphale remembers weakly. The feeling is dread.

#good omens #good omens fanfic #good omens snippet #grand duke of hell #grand duke crowley #supreme archangel aziraphale #aziracrow fic #post season 2 #ineffable husbands #good omens ficlet #hdwtotl #moonyinpisces writes #can you believe that in my OG plan for hdwtotl god didn't give aziraphale instructions??? what was i doing #crowley's outfit was WAY better though. which is why i changed it lol

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luci-in-trenchcoats · 6 months

Note

Out of the blue my mind just went I miss Beau Arlen. I have not watched the show or read any fics recently, it just popped up. So then I was like I wonder when S4 will get released, which I totally expected to be awhile given the writers strike but I was thinking maybe there was a rough timeline before the strike. So I did a quick google search to find to my horror there will be no S4

And now I’m realizing that this is information I knew about shortly after the final aired, but you know how your brain forgets stuff to protect you, well that’s must have what happened because I couldn’t cope with it so my brain just deleted the information.

And now I’m sad cause I miss this guy

I was so sad when it was cancelled too! S3 was such a tonal shift from S1-2, for the better imo, but they might have alienated the original viewers. It finally got it's feet under it with what kind of show it wanted to be in the last season. Beau was a great character that they'd only started to unravel (his past with his partner and dealing with that trauma, his and Jenny's future, who he is outside of being a dad, etc.). I sorely will miss that he won't grace our screens again. There's always fanfic at least!

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punchdrunkdoc · 11 months

Text

Part 2, Chapter 12

Summary: After the events of S3, Matt Murdock is trying to once again balance life as a lawyer and a vigilante. But he’s been scarred by loss and betrayal - will a mysterious new neighbour help him heal? Or will her secrets drag him back into the darkness?

Notes: This is a slow burn romance with an original female character, told in 3 parts. There is mystery, intrigue, action/violence and angst - all the good stuff!

Also available on AO3 and Wattpad

Masterlist

Reference pics

————–

PART 2

Chapter 12

Matt’s confession felt so monumental to him - representing a seismic breakthrough after months of denial and self-delusion - that a part of him thought those words alone would be enough to pull Calina out of her coma.

But there was no change in her still, sleeping form.

Matt wiped the tears from his eyes and moved up onto the mattress. He stretched out beside Calina and hoped that it might trigger some sort of sense memory of the mornings they would lie like this in his bed.

Then he continued talking.

If the Widows were right and there was even the slightest chance that his words could reach her and bring her back, then he would talk until his voice gave out.

And as the words spilled into the quiet room, it felt cathartic in a way. He’d spent months denying himself the truth of his feelings, and sublimating all the love he harboured for her. But now that he’d finally admitted it to himself, it was as if the floodgates had opened and all the thoughts and feelings and dreams that he’d stashed away came pouring out into the open.

He talked to her about the first time he saw her,

“…I think I fell in love with you right there and then, as crazy as that sounds. There was just something about you, standing there on that rooftop, your hair blowing in the wind…It was as if a part of you called out to me, and I couldn’t help but answer. I haven’t been the same since…”

And how the mystery of her intrigued him,

“…I heard you once, when you were in your apartment. Well, the truth is, I actively listened. You were playing music, one fragment of a song after another, and I couldn’t figure out why. But now I know - you were trying to find out what you liked to listen to. I remember that you stopped on a Nina Simone song, and you listened to it all the way through - we listened to it together…”

He told her of all the experiences he wanted to share with her,

“…I hate that you missed so much growing up the way that you did. I even started keeping a list of all the things I want to show you, and all the things we could do together. Just simple things, like going to the movies. You could sit and watch the film, and I could sit and just be near you as you enjoyed it. We could drive out to the seaside and talk a walk along the shore, or go on a proper vacation and be tourists together. I’ll do anything you want. As long as we’re together, I’ll be happy. If we did nothing for the rest of our lives but play chess and hit punching bags together I would be so incredibly happy, Calina. I’d only regret that I never found you sooner…”

How the apartment didn’t feel the same without her,

“…the new couch was delivered yesterday. But I couldn’t bring myself to sit on it. It feels like our couch. And it didn’t feel right for it to be there, in the apartment, without you…the place feels so lifeless now. So cold and empty without you…”

He spoke of everything and nothing, his voice hushed as he filled the air between them with teasing jokes and memories of the time they’d spent together.

“…you said you could only really sleep when I was beside you, but you’re taking it a bit far now, Calina…you need to wake up for me, sweetheart. I need to hear your voice. I’ve been going crazy without it. Talking with you is one of my favourite things, did you know that? I love to hear your views on things, and I love it when you get excited about a topic and want to tell me all about it. And I love to make you laugh. God, you have such a great laugh…”

And all the while he touched her. If his voice was the beacon in her darkness, he wanted his touch to be her anchor. To draw her back to the world…and to him. He played with her fingers. He ran his hand up and down her arm. He caressed her face, tracing over the arch of her eyebrow and the curve of her cheek.

At one point he propped his head up on his hand and smoothed his other palm over her head. He felt the braids in her hair and started to loosen them. “I remember you saying in the gym that you never wanted to wear your hair like this again.” When her hair was free, he ran his fingers through the long strands. “And I said at the time that I like your hair. The truth is, I love your hair. I’d sometimes wake up in the morning with my face buried in it. And I’d always stay like that until you woke, just enjoying the scent and the feel of it against my skin…”

As the hours ticked by, he sensed the shadows in the room shift as dawn approached. The chorus of birdsong in the woods changed from owls to larks, signalling morning. His voice got quieter, and his head started to feel heavy on his hand. He settled down on the pillow next to hers, and draped his arm carefully across her waist.

“…I heard you called for me, after it happened. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me. But I’m here now. I’ll always be here - if you’ll have me. I’m sorry I messed things up between us. I swear I’ll make it up to you. But you need to wake up to give me that chance. Please wake up, sweetheart. Please come back to me…”

———

He woke to the feel of fingers gently brushing through his hair. He must have shifted down the bed during the night, because his head now rested on Calina’s chest - as if he’d needed to feel the sensation of her breathing in his sleep to convince himself she was still alive.

The soft touch came again, and he froze, scared to hope that it was real. Terrified that it was just a dream.

Then she spoke. “Matthew?”

Her voice was barely more than a whispered murmur, but it was the most wonderful sound he’d ever heard.

He squeezed his eyes shut to stem the tears that wanted to fall and pulled her tighter against him with the arm he still had around her waist. “It’s Matt, remember?” he managed to choke out.

“Hmmm, Matt.” She sounded groggy and only half awake, her usual early morning disorientation amplified by the length of her sleep and whatever drugs were trickling through her system.

He lifted his head and wished that he could see her face. He wanted to see her open her eyes - he longed for that visual proof that she was really back. He settled for listening to her breathe instead - stronger and faster than the night before.

And he basked in the sound of her voice...even though she was talking nonsense. “You’re gonna be late f’work,” she mumbled.

He smiled and reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear. “I’m not going to work today, sweetheart.”

Whether it was the caress or the affectionate name, something caused her heart-rate to jump. The beeps from the machine monitoring her chimed out at a staccato rate. “Shhh,” she admonished to the inanimate device. “You’ll give me away.”

Matt laughed. “I can hear your heartbeat without that, remember?”

“Hmmm.”

Unfortunately, the sound of her accelerated heartbeat brought the rest of the Widows running, and their arrival shattered the peaceful intimacy of the moment.

“Calina?” Yelena called out as she ran through the door. “You’re really awake!”

Calina turned her head away from her sister and nestled against Matt. “Still sleepy. Go’way.”

Matt laughed again, the relief bubbling up within him and spilling out as joy. He’d have been happy to follows Calina’s lead and fall back to sleep with her in his arms, but her sisters had other ideas. The medic - Sofia? - tapped him on the arm and said, “Give me some room.”

Her touch was polite but her voice was brisk and no-nonsense, so he reluctantly moved off the bed and waited in the corner of the room as she checked Calina’s vitals and examined her wound.

“Thank you,” Yelena said, coming to stand beside him. “We couldn’t bear to lose her too.”

“Too?”

“Kira…she didn’t make it.” The weight of Yelena’s grief was heavy in her voice.

“I’m sorry.”

She nodded. Before she could speak again, there was the sound of feet running through the cabin, and a desperate cry from the young Widow he’d met yesterday, “Anya called! The helicopter is back.”

“Fuck,” Yelena hissed.

“What’s going on?” Matt asked.

“Anya’s been monitoring the satellite feeds from this region. There’s been some suspicious activity over the last few hours - helicopters searching in a grid, SUV convoys on the roads to the east of us, that type of thing.”

“You think you were followed?”

“Perhaps. It might be nothing…but I’m not going to take any chances. Inessa, is Katya back yet?”

“Yes,” the other Widow replied, catching her breath. “She just parked up outside.”

“Good. Sofia, is she good to move?”

Sofia looked up from where she was checking Calina’s IV. “It’s not ideal, but she’s stable. I’ll give her something so the travelling won’t disturb her.”

“Travelling?” Matt asked. “Move? What are you talking about?”

“We’re getting out of here,” Yelena answered. She turned her attention to the other Widows and started barking instructions. “Be ready to leave in five. We need to scrub this place and make sure there’s nothing left behind that can link to us. We’ll ditch our phones on the way - I want us clean when we arrive at the new base.”

She marched out of the room and Matt followed her. He tugged on her arm to get her to stop. “Are you sure this is the best idea? She just woke up. What happens if the journey sets her back?”

“Then we’ll deal with it at the new base - where they’ll be a dozen Widows at our back in case we’re found again.”

“If it’s about safety, I can stay here with you and protect her.”

“This isn’t your fight-”

“Her fight is my fight.”

“That’s…sweet…or whatever. But we’re leaving, and that’s final. We’ll drop you off somewhere outside Manhattan.”

“Let me come with you. To your new safe house.” He could hear the desperate pleading in his voice but he didn’t care. He’d just gotten Calina back - in more ways than one. He didn’t want to let her out of his sight again.

“No-”

“Please, Yelena. I’m- I’m begging you.”

She paused. Then sighed. “We’ll discuss it on the way. We don’t have time for this right now.” She strode off to join the chaos of the cabin. The Widows were running from room to room, grabbing gear and weapons, and frantically wiping their prints from every surface.

Matt slipped back into Calina’s room, a still point in the centre of the storm. He sat on the bed and rested his hand against her chest, feeling the gentle rise and fall as she breathed. With her eyes closed, and all the wires and IVs already removed, he could be fooled into thinking she was just sleeping.

But he could smell the morphine in her veins, and the other drugs Sofia had just given her.

And he could sense her injuries. He’d noticed them last night, but he’d been too preoccupied pulling her out of that deep, far away place in her mind to properly catalogue them. Now they stood out - and they proved just how beaten up she was.

He skimmed his fingers lightly over the swelling on the side of her face, likely made by someone’s fist hammering into her cheek. The bullet wound in her side was a hot, angry tract tearing through her tissues. The knee that she’d wrenched weeks ago was inflamed again, and she was littered with bruises and scrapes and small cuts.

And she smelled like gunpowder and smoke, as if she’d been in an explosion.

“We’re apart for a few days, and look what happened,” he whispered, brushing his fingers through her hair. “I guess the sensible option is for us never to be apart again.”

Convincing Yelena of that would be difficult. But he was a lawyer, after all - he could reason his way around Yelena’s stubbornness.

“Murdock?” the woman in question called from the doorway. “We’re ready to go. Can you bring Calina out?”

Matt nodded and gently gathered Calina in his arms. Her head was a heavy weight on his shoulder, and he could feel her hair tickling the side of his neck. He spared a brief moment to press a kiss against her forehead and breathe her in deeply, relishing her beautiful scent. Then he followed the other Widows out of the cabin.

Where a large, long vehicle was parked in place of the van he’d arrived in yesterday.

“Is that an RV?” he asked, his voice incredulous.

“Yeah,” Katya replied. “We traded in the van.”

“Isn’t it a little…conspicuous?”

“We’re in a vacation spot. Driving a blacked-out van through the woods would be more suspicious, don’t you think?” She opened the door for Matt and he walked up the few steps into the spacious interior. “Besides, this way we have somewhere for Calina to sleep comfortably.”

She guided him to the bed at the back, where Sofia was waiting to monitor her patient. He lay Calina on the mattress and let the medic have her space.

As the vehicle started lumbering out of the clearing, Matt took a seat at the small table opposite Yelena. He opened his mouth, ready to fight his case, ready to plead with the other woman to let him stay with Calina…but he never got the chance.

He felt the prick of a needle against his neck instead.

And for the second time in less than 24 hours, his world went black.

———

“Hey. Hey, man. HEY!”

The insistent shouts and the light shove against his shoulder roused Matt. He scrubbed at his face and shook his head, trying to clear away the fogginess that still clung to him.

“Oh, good, you’re alive. Thought I was gonna have to do mouth-to-mouth or something.” The speaker followed up the words with a laugh that soon descended into a hacking cough. It sounded like an older man. He was to the left of Matt, and they were both seated on a cold metal bench.

Matt tried to stretch out his senses, to get a feel for where he was, but his mind was still clogged by the drug.

The drug!

The Widows had fucking drugged him again! Then they’d dumped him somewhere while they’d driven off-

Calina!

The thought of her travelling miles and miles away from him jolted him out of his daze. His head shot up off the glass structure it was leaning against. “Where are we?” he croaked out to the man next to him.

“Bus stop. Waitin’ on the No.7 to take me downtown.”

“Downtown where?”

“Danbury.”

Matt searched his memory. Where the hell was Danbury? “Wait, in Connecticut?”

“That’s the one. And here comes my ride.”

Matt heard the sound of a large engine approaching. It stopped in front of them, then there was the distinctive whoosh as the bus doors opened.

“You coming?” the man asked, rising from the bench, his knees creaking painfully with the movement.

“No. I’ll, uh, wait for the next one.”

“Suit yourself.” Moments later, the doors whooshed again as they closed behind the old man.

Matt patted down his pockets and sighed in relief when he found his phone - at least he hadn’t been dumped and stranded with no means of communication. He hit the redial button for Calina’s number, but as expected it just rang and rang.

He hung up then dialled Foggy’s number. It went straight to voicemail. Matt checked the time and swore. It was just after 4pm - Foggy was in court this afternoon.

He tried Karen instead, and exhaled in relief when she answered. “Matt?”

“Yeah.”

“Where are you? Foggy got this weird text from you yesterday then we heard nothing. Are you okay?”

Was he okay?

Physically…yes.

Emotionally…not so much. He was boiling with anger at Yelena and her decision to dump him like trash on the side of the road. He was annoyed at himself for not seeing it coming. And he was sick with fear for Calina. She was nowhere near ready for long distance travel - she’d barely woken from a coma five minutes before she was bundled onto the back of that RV. And God knows how far away they were going to take her.

God knows when he’d see her again…

“Matt?” Karen asked, sounding worried.

Matt shook his head. “I’m okay. But I, uh, kind of need a ride.”

“A ride? Where to?”

“Back to Hell’s Kitchen…from Connecticut.”

“Connecticut?!”

———

Karen’s car pulled up outside the diner two hours later. Matt had managed to find the small restaurant by following the scent of coffee grinds and cooking oil. He’d used the last few bucks in his pocket to buy a hot drink, then he’d passed the time hunched in the corner of a booth by the window, calling Calina’s phone again and again.

The first half a dozen times, the line just rang out.

The next half a dozen times, he got an automated message: ‘The phone you're calling is switched off, please try again later’.

He would have kept trying, but the battery on his own cell eventually died out and he was left to wait for Karen in silence.

He lifted his head when the sound of her decades-old Toyota entered the car park. She beeped the horn twice to let him know it was her, and he quickly gathered his coat and made his way outside.

“Do you have a phone charger?” he asked, collapsing into the passenger seat.

Karen laughed as she swung back onto the road. “Its nice to see you, Karen. Thank you for driving all the way out of state to come pick me up, Karen.”

Matt gave her a sheepish smile. “Its nice to see you, Karen. Thank you for driving all the way out of state to come pick me up, Karen.”

“That’s more like it. There’s a charger in the glove box.”

Matt connected the phone, and the moment it had enough charge, he called Calina again.

“The number you have dialled has been disconnected.”

Matt stared at the phone in shock as the new message sunk in. Then he remembered what Yelena had said in the cabin, something about arriving at the new base ‘clean’…

He’d lost his lifeline.

“Fuck!” Matt yelled. He slammed his now-useless phone against the dashboard. “FUCK!”

“Matt! What’s going on?”

“They ditched the phones. They ditched the fucking phones!”

“I don’t understand! You need to start at the beginning - what happened? Why were you in Connecticut?”

Matt explained about the call from Yelena, and waking up at a cabin near a lake. He told her about Calina’s coma, and how he’d stayed with her all night.

And how they’d been separated minutes after she woke up.

“And now I’ve lost the only way I had to contact her. I don’t know where she’s going, or what condition she’s in…”

Karen reached over and grasped Matt’s hand. “I’m sure she’ll be okay. From what you’ve told me, she’s a fighter. A little car journey won’t take her down. And once she gets to this new base, she’ll call you.”

Matt laughed, the sound bitter and hopeless. “She never heard me, Karen. She was still unconscious when I explained about Foggy’s mistake in the bar, and when I apologised to her for everything. When I told her I- I loved her…she never heard any of it.”

“But you said it yourself, she woke up. She saw that you were there with her-”

“Yes, but she’d just woken up from a coma. She was still half out of it and delirious. She won’t remember, Karen. And she won’t call.” Matt screwed his eyes shut, trying to block the desperate tears that wanted to fall. He covered his face with one of his hands, and whispered in defeat, “I’ve lost her.”

———

I giveth...then I taketh away...

I’m sorry!!

CHAPTER 13

@hollandorks @stilldreaming666 @acharliecoxedfan @chezagnes @freckledbabyyy @yanna-banana @tearoseart-blog

If you want to be added to the tag list, let me know!

#Daredevil #daredevil fic #daredevil fanfic #daredevil fanfiction #marvel's daredevil #daredevil x original female character #Matt Murdock #matt murdock fanfic #matt murdock x oc #tabula rasa

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morphofan · 3 months

Text

Hyper-Fixation and The Bad Batch

Or, "WTF Is Going On With Morph, Lately?"

Me and The Bad Batch

SO, I first started watching The Bad Batch during the hiatus between S1 and S2. I was big into Boba Fett (thanks to The Mandalorian) and so I found The Bad Batch because Boba was mentioned in one episode. But I didn’t sit down to watch it until my friend, Cyn, told me I HAD to watch it.

So I watched the whole first season, and then had to go back and watch The Bad Batch arc in Season 7 of The Clone Wars. I was hooked. I couldn’t wait for Season 2. I was writing again, inspired again, hyper-fixated.

My sweet cat, my baby, Thomas, died at age 5 in November of 2022. It emotionally destroyed me.

Then my desktop computer had a total hard drive failure. Up until then, I was backing stuff up in a separate folder on my computer, which did f*ckall because the entire hard drive went bad. This was before I learned about backing stuff up on a cloud or OneDrive or whatever.

I lost all my fics, including a half-dozen Bad Batch fics in various states of completion. It was some of the best work I’ve ever written, and it was gone. Poof.

So, there was that sense of lost, and I almost left the fandom from sheer depression. I tried to rewrite the fics, but it wasn’t going to work because I knew I could never replicate what I had written.

Then came “Plan 99.”

I didn’t eat for a week. Not a bite, not a calorie. For seven days. I dropped 16 pounds. At the time of this writing, it’s been nearly 10 months since the finale of S2. The Bad Batch has occupied my mind this entire time. I couldn’t tell you what I did over the last ten months, because it was all just a long blur. I neglected my family, my duties, all the things that a grown ass woman is supposed to focus on.

I still tried to contribute to the fandom, with “Travels With Tech,” fic and video edits, but most of it has been more or less ignored.

A week or so ago, the friend that originally told me about TBB died, very suddenly, of a heart attack at age 45, leaving three kids.

We still haven’t been publicly shown the S3 Bad Batch teaser that was revealed at Star Wars Celebration back in May 2023. There’s been no word of a release date, aside from 2024. It feels now like the creators are mocking us by dropping little comments on TwiX about S3, but not actually giving us anything.

And I’ve realized now, that I’ve built up S3 in my head so much, and imagined so many scenarios I want to see, that I am destined to be disappointed when it does finally air. No matter how amazing S3 is, it cannot live up to the standards I’ve assigned it in my mind.

I did the same thing with S3 of The Mandalorian. I kept thinking, if I could just hold on until S3 of Mando, everything would be good again. But when it came, I was disappointed. And I know the same thing is going to happen with The Bad Batch.

Hyper-fixations always follow the same pattern. I get obsessed with something, and then, quite suddenly, it passes over and I become ambivalent to it. It’s happened with every fandom I’ve been with. Something that, for a time, I thought I could not live without becomes ho-hum. I don’t ever want it to happen, but it always does.

And now I have the guilt of wasting the last two years of my life on yet another hyper-fixation, only to lose interest in it just as suddenly as it started.

S3 of TBB is NOT going to make everything right again. It might provide some happiness for a few months, but then it will end and that will be it.

So anyway… sorry.

END

#the bad batch #tech bad batch #The Bad Batch Season 3 #Pouring Out My Purse #hyperfixation #fandom

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stardreamer28 · 4 months

Note

Ask Game Shipping: Captain Swan & Outlaw Queen?

-why do you ship?

Why do you like them?

-unpopular opinion about them?

CS: I ship them 'cause they were a surprise to me. I didn't expect it. I was so in & out of watching when it was on air that it slapped me in the face lol. I like them 'cause the redemption Hook had. and just that yea it was sort of good girl/bad boy but then you realize he had more layers underneath of why he was like that. & she wasn't the typical "hero" ya know? umm not really anything unpopular for them I don't think? I wasn't huge on Milah, that's about it. OQ: I really don't know how I started shipping them 'cause it was so long ago. Sean had been on my radar through my love of British tv and came up as one of the Robin Hoods (I love BBC's Robin). and then I went back when my watching of Tom Ellis started in Miranda. but I ship them ultimately because I just love how caring they are, how they are with their kids especially Roland, and though I was hesitant on OUAT at first as an oldschool Disney animation fan, I like ships that are a bit out of the box. like an AU of themselves if that makes sense lol. why I like them probably has alot to do with Lana & Sean's chemistry on & off screen and being besties. as the evil queen I didn't expect to like much of Regina's story but as it got into s3, 4 & especially 7 I really liked those arcs. and in s6 when it was Outlaw Queen but not the original version, I liked how Wish Robin understood caring about her but went with the more...unrefined version of the Evil Queen. that was another thing too, that I ended up liking both versions of their characters. unpopular opinion is probably as much as I ADORE Bex and the character of Little Robin, I didn't really like Zelena at all & her meddling in their ship lol. the only time was the back half of s7

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zutaralesbian · 10 months

Text

I’ve been in this fandom off and on so some people already know me. But I’ve missed talking about Gallavich and decided to do this intro idea that the lovely @callivich came up with! Hi to everyone whose new to the ship or whom I’ve never interacted with! :)

Name: Danielle

Age: 27

What made you fall in love with Gallavich?

I started watching Shameless because my sister was binging it on Netflix and I thought it looked interesting. Gallavich took me by surprise because at first, they were not on my radar. I knew Ian was involved in a popular gay ship but they weren’t the reason I started watching. My interest for them started picking up during S3 when they began to further develop Mickey’s character. And then I watched S4 and suddenly Mickey was my favorite character on the show and the Gallavich brainrot became strong lol. At the time, they were also one of the most developed gay ships I knew about.

How long have you been a fan?

I started binging the show when S7 was first originally airing. So…*looks it up* since 2016. Damn. I believe 7x08 was the first episode I watched live. I saw the border scene in real time and it broke me lol. As much as I complain about seasons 10 and 11, it is still amazing to me that there was a time where I didn’t think Gallavich would be endgame and now they’re canonically married.

Favourite Gallavich moment/scene?

The wedding scene. Just all of it. It was so validating to see Ian and Mickey get married after all the shit the show threw at them lol.

Favourite Shameless character apart from Ian and Mickey?

Fiona!!! I think she was a beautifully complex character and Gallavich was the only reason I kept watching after she was gone lol. Her absence was still highly noticed though imo.

I also think Lip is one of the better-written characters but my feelings on him as a person are complicated lmao.

Do you write or draw or make edits?

I’m a mediocre fanfic writer. My ao3 username is we_were_younger

Favourite type of Gallavich fics?

When it comes to Gallavich specifically I really dig canon divergence and full on AU’s. With how long their canon history is, there’s so many different twists and outcomes that could have changed how things went for them, and I find ideas like that very fun to explore. They’re also one of the few ships I have where I think they can fit really well in most popular AU settings.

I am an angst lover though, so angst with a happy ending is my ultimate favorite trope. Not just with Gallavich but with fic in general. I’ll occasionally read and enjoy a fluffy one-shot but when it comes to multi-chapters, there usually has to be some angst for me to be fully engaged lmao.

Favourite Gallavich quote?

For Mickey: “Ian, what you and I have makes me free.”

For Ian: “I wanna be where you are, Mickey.”

I think both of those quotes just sums up what the other means to them so well.

#gallavich #gallavichintro #*

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kenobihater · 2 months

Text

so, uh... netflix avatar certainly is a show, huh? i just finished episode 1 and i'm gonna ramble on about it below. blacklist "#len watches natla" or "natla spoilers" if you either don't wanna see this shit or you don't want spoilers.

fair warning that i was relatively neutral going into the show, but episode 1 was... hmm. i'm still struggling to formulate words on it. i didn't love it, but it wasn't shyamalan levels of bad by any means. i'm gonna hop right into episode 2 after this post bc i've heard the pilot and the finale are the weakest episodes and i genuinely wanna give it a fair chance before i cast judgment.

so, they open with the air nomad genocide. i knew this going in, but it certainly sets a Tone, a Tone that does NOT feel like avatar. like, i understand they wanted to elevate the level of maturity a bit and make things more serious, but was it rlly necessary to see a shit ton of air nomads get fireballed to death, culminating in gyatso getting burned alive trying to protect a room of children, who also presumably get incinerated?? they didn't show that part, instead doing a hard cut to katara waterbending a century later (resulting in EXTREME whiplash for me), but them violently dying is the only way that ends.

also, minor quibble: the firebending looked normal to me, but the general who killed gyatso said smthn like "you might have beaten me any other day, but today we have the power of the comet!" but their bending doesn't look very different from zuko's bending later? it's a little more flamey ig, but in s3 when ozai gets juiced up the motherfucker is out here destroying whole forests from his airship.

onto the acting. gordon cormier's portrayal felt a little too rehearsed and theatrical rather than natural, but he's a kid and acting is hard so i'm def gonna cut him some slack, and he does seem pretty happy and earnest, even if his delivery is a bit forced. kiawentiio tarbell is pretty good, but her dialogue left a bit to be desired, which isn't on her and i'll complain about later. ian ousley gave the best performance imo, tho ymmv bc ik there's some controversy around his heritage that i don't feel i have the right to get into due to tribal registration being a complex topic, blood quantum being awful, and me being white. gran gran was barely there and just exposited everywhere in a weird callback to the og intro, so i don't really feel like she's that important even tho i liked her casting. uncle iroh... i'm not sure. he wasn't too prevalent, which is understandable this early on. i liked paul sun-hyung lee's warmth, but don't have much to say otherwise yet. and then there's dallas james liu. i think his acting was pretty solid, at least on the level of dev patel's performance (which i swear is a compliment bc he was the only good part of shyamalan's dumpster fire of a film imo). i think the issue i have with the performance is down to the writing, which i guess i'll get into now bc it's my biggest issue with episode 1.

the dialogue flow was mid, and there was a bit of info dumping from gyatso in his scene with aang which i found distracting. speaking of info dumping, gran gran was just kinda there to explain the last hundred yrs to aang and then have zero interactions with her grandchildren before they flew off, which was dumb.

still on the topic of writing: i mentioned the tone set by the opener, and i think that's bad, but it also fucked up the pacing by not starting at the same point the og did. by the end of the episode they shoehorned in the trip to the southern air temple with like 11 mins left (i checked) and so that made aang's grief triggering the avatar state feel rushed. i also thought the flashback to gyatso's earlier dialogue when aang saw his corpse was unnecessary. like bitch, i watched that 30 mins ago, i remember it fine! by the end, aang seemed waaaay more driven than he did in s1 of the original, almost as self-confident as he was in s3. like, he accepted being the avatar real quick. i'm pretty sure he'll display a bit more uncertainty later in the season (at least, i hope he does), but that still felt off to me.

my biggest complaint about the writing is zuko. i KNOW he's a brat, i am well aware of that as a lifelong zuko girlie, but was him trying to kill sokka necessary??? he was literally about to throw a fireball at him when he was lying defeated in the snow before aang stepped in. he also commanded his soldiers to burn the village to the ground at one point. i understand he's a villain and that they're attempting to corner the Prestige TV market here, so they've decided to make him grittier. i don't like it, though. in the cartoon, zuko is driven in his awful quest, but he's also honorable - in the village he nods his head in agreement when aang asks if he'll leave the village alone if aang goes with him. that little moment showed his honor, his true honor, peeking through. also in the cartoon, he's really bad at finding the avatar despite being very skilled in combat. i don't know how they're gonna have him show up very much in this season if he's gonna be more of a ruthless asshole tbh.

overall, i'm left just kinda confused with the tone and character writing of the show. i'm going to watch the whole season because it's only 8 episodes and i genuinely hope it improves somewhat, but i'd give it either a 6 or a 6.5/10, i can't quite decide.

#len speaks #len watches natla #natla spoilers #sidenote: zu.ko's scar isn't NEARLY graphic enough. that lessens the horror of it to me which i'm honestly rlly disappointed with #and final sidenote: HATED the intro especially considering gran gran repeats the og intro nearly verbatim later. the new intro was just bad #anyway. i'm still left kinda 😕 after this episode. i'd really hoped it would be better tho i kept my expectations low

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dreamerlynx · 3 months

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also speaking of legend of korra my sib and I finished watching season 1 today ^_^ we watched it when it originally aired, and they watched the whole series sometime last year which I joined in for s3-4, but they were interested in watching again and it gets a bad rap but tbh??? tbh????

legend of korra season 1 is good!! the love triangle mess isn’t as bad as even I remember thinking if anything it’s major problem is they ran out of time so it fizzled out without actual character discussions and just shoved Mako and Korra together for the Happy Ending TM

we’re starting s2 now which I have actually never ever watched, I just know whatever spoilers I’ve gotten from the later seasons or online. Eager to see and make fun of it w my sibling it’s gonna be fun!

#idk figured I’d elaborate from earlier #basically: legend of korra is good people r just mean !#tenzin is actually awesome in s1 idk why I don’t remember kid me liking him #and the creators clearly Adore asami love that for her <3 #korra has been a 10/10 protag from the start she’s super lovable #lynx says things

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wellntruly · 1 year

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M*A*S*H - Viewguide, S3

Are you interested in the long-running anti-war situation tragicomedy M*A*S*H (1972-1983), but there are simply so many asterisks and so many episodes?

Well I can’t help you with the asterisks, but nor can I help myself: I started watching all 11 seasons of M*A*S*H, and bringing back for you my viewing selections, chosen for The Qualities.

— — —

You should have seen me at Movie Madness pulling out the drawer for “TV: 1970s” and finding this complete stack of covers for all 11 seasons of M*A*S*H. Lost in the saaauuce.

But, amazing news: not only did I make the surprising discovery that what's on Hulu is clearly a restored and remastered version of the far crunchier material on the DVDs, but also that I DEEPLY prefer the original laugh track! It turns out, the laughter is the score. They’d cut to it like music. Without that melody it was built around everything felt so off, so eerily quiet.

Incidentally, over the recent holiday weekend I sang all of 1.75 non-chorus lines of ‘Suicide Is Painless’ in the kitchen and my dad just said, “MASH.” We then talked about all our faves while playing solitaire and drinking maple whiskey sours by the woodstove. Cannot believe I’m getting such a fond memory with my father from M*A*S*H but I��m not sure why, that seems right.

Here are my own suggested favorites from the third season, the last of an era!!! /weeping

M*A*S*H - Season 3 Recommended sequence

3x02 ‘Rainbow Bridge’ - It is amazing that the first episode of this season that aired was the first episode of this season that aired, as everything about the second episode, ‘Rainbow Bridge’, feels like the premiere of the third season of a service comedy (slowly turning dramedy). The 4077th get a message from the Chinese that they have nine wounded American GIs that need more medical help than they can offer, and give their coordinates 50 miles behind the line. “Could be a trap, Trap.” GREAT STUFF. And hey, Season 3? Someone’s upgraded the photography department! She’s moving, folks (the camera). They also keep cutting to Loudon Wainwright perched above the camp with his guitar singing some absurd song about Tokyo like every third scene transition. Why? Couldn’t tell ya. Except to repeat the first line.

3x03 ‘Officer of the Day’ - Henry’s away and Frank makes Hawkeye be Officer of the Day. I love that when he’s backed into a management position, Captain Pierce is actually rather good at it. Tired and clever and humane. It’s gonna sound odd, but he’s almost Lawful, just his code is nothing Army regulation, simply Do The Least Harm. He is a stickler on that. Also contains the best visual punchline I've seen yet. Simply burst out laughing.

3x04 'Iron Guts Kelly' - Margaret kills a general and is like, who would help me hide this body, and doesn’t even have to think about it. Cordially, [throwing a pillow in the face of me of the past] YOU DIDN’T KNOW WHAT YOU HAD, YOU DOSED UP LUNATIC.

3x05 ‘O.R.’ - Ha ha I COULD EAT MY OWN HAND.

100% in surgery, zero laugh track, which does forever prove The Power of Editing (!) as it runs so beautifully, no weird stilted silence like when you take it out later, and also I’m changed as a person. 10/10 I am gnawing.

3x06 'Springtime' - Update ‘Springtime’ an essential episode as writer & actor Mary Kay Place’s literal-literal self-insert M*A*S*H script in which she plays a hot nurse in glasses getting seduced by Radar O’Reilly. I am….obsessed with her. Also Klinger gets married!!!

3x08 ‘Life With Father’ - This one is ultimately a lil' silly sure, but I think I’m powerless to resist Radar, Father Mulcahy, and this young Korean mom moving Heaven & Earth to get a rabbi on the radio to walk them through performing a bris for her Jewish-Korean infant son. And that’s the A-plot, the B-plot is Hawkeye and Trapper are trying to complete a Hidden Picture to win a pony.

3x09 ‘Alcoholics Unanimous’ - I wasn’t going to include both alcoholism episodes, but this is such a good Margaret ep I couldn’t kick it out of bed. Loretta Swit is just so, so funny in this one. I was losing it. Even our impossible miscreants are like lol hang out with us! Favorite drunken scene yet, for sure for sure for sure for sure.

3x11 ‘Adam’s Rib’ - The fact that my dad spontaneously quoted a line from this episode to me, and not even one I would have thought particularly memorable, should alone earn it a spot on any recommendation list. But I too still find myself recalling multiple moments from this one. 'Adam's Rib'—it's gotta be on here!

3x13 ‘Mad Dogs and Servicemen’ - Oh you know I’m here for an episode where in the first minutes Trapper is going, “Frank, that’s straight out of World War I, no one thinks ‘shellshock’ anymore!” Tragically we don’t actually get to see psychiatrist Sidney Freedman, their one-time comedic antagonist turned professional pal and poker buddy (I love this...so much), but I did send a plot synopsis to my own pal Jen, doctor of psychology and practicing therapist, for the psych eval, and her full report is pending but the abstract indicates that hey, Sid’s c. 1950s therapy for their phantom paralysis case (currently probably called a conversion disorder) might be a plausible approach! Remains to be seen if it would be strictly necessary for Hawkeye to have to role-play as Betsy Tough Love to this kid and feel chewed up about it, but it does make for good TV.

3x15 'Bombed' - Everyone’s emotions are running VERY high in this episode, which just straight up opens with the camp being bombed all to hell. With ‘O.R.’ and ‘Aid Station’ as well this season, this fellow dramatic one ended up just missing the first edition of this list, but it’s important to be able to admit when you were wrong. Margaret & Trapper trapped in the supply shed…the bombs are not the only thing shaking me.

3x17 ‘The Consultant’ - This episode rules so, so hard. Love a sneaky cautionary taaaale! Definitely a far finer crafted story than ‘Alcoholics Anonymous’, but we’re including both for their various other appealing elements. Such as, here: a sublimely absurd interlude to a British camp where everyone is like “..Quite,” heavy bombardment, a scene with the trio in incredible swimming get-ups for the water tank pool Henry has made, tensely breathtaking surgery, and just a steady course of Alan Alda being rampantly bisexual in front of, across, and at one point directly to his own real life father. You love to can't believe you're seeing it.

3x18 ‘House Arrest’ - This one is sheer chaos and with an ending I don’t care for much, but the primary plot is Hawkeye & Trapper have possibly never been more dating. Really some peak absurd & precious ne'er-do-well pair behavior, and I just can’t keep this one from you, not here, not now..(!) I also quite like the bit with Radar & Klinger, and ultimately Hawkeye, having a moment of critical self-reflection on his own teasing. Damn Frank storyline, get out of here! Just give us more of the gang watching the new Gene Tierney picture.

3x19 ‘Aid Station’ - Literally cheered at the end of a Margaret monologue in this, a stand-out even before she and Hawkeye and Klinger are in the midst of actual hell together at the front, and work so hard & desperately and get so dear. Not to bandy about the term mutual respect, but Hawkeye bandies about the term mutual respect. Haha, [softly] help. Meanwhile, Trapper & Radar :’) & Henry :’) Second of two episodes this season, both of which I have very much included, where Colonel Blake has to make the decision to send some of his people to the front where they very much might die, and his heart just won’t rest until they’re back, which is always *primo.* Henryyy..!

This episode is M*A*S*H being funny and harrowing and sincere and really, really aware of humor as a way to try to shore against the loss of people you care about all in 25 minutes, which is why, in probably an even more dramatic move than any episode I’ve skipped yet: this is my Season 3 finale for you. This does goodbyes in wartime best this season, goofy, glorious, gutting, the whole cocktail. The ingredients are there in ‘Check-up’ and ‘Abyssinia, Henry’, but they haven’t been balanced in the shaker by as steady a hand as the ones that crafted ‘Aid Station’.

And you’ll learn what happened in the actual season finale at the beginning of Season 4, and as you should: just a few careful sentences with a pit beneath them, and in a moment when the loss has gotten even ❤️ worse.

Season 1 • Season 2 • Season 3 • To be continued

#M*A*S*H hours

#M*A*S*H hours #M*A*S*H #viewguides #Tarra watches #what am I even gonna do with my NOTES

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tangledbea · 2 years

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I got into the series later then some other fans and I have heard it said that ratings for the show went down after season 1and continued to decline. Is this true? I guess this surprises me because I greatly enjoyed this series. Is there a reason as to why the ratings dropped in later seasons?

I think I got psychic damage from reliving this and writing this replay. XD

It is true, and, as far as I know, it was a self-perpetuating problem on Disney's part.

Now, I'm no expert in ratings. I don't know where to go to look for them, nor do I know how to interpret what I'm seeing when I am shown ratings (last time I saw a ratings number for TTS, my only thought was, 'Okay, but that looks like a lot of people are watching it?'). But here is how it appeared to me, a layman, as I was watching the series air.

"Tangled: Before Ever After" was a Disney Channel Original Movie (DCOM for short), and was given a lot of fanfare by Disney Channel. It was aired in a prime time slot, on a Friday night, and ran multiple times over its premier weekend. The series started in earnest two weeks later, also on Friday evening. Disney aired reruns, made merch, promoted it, genuinely tried to get people to watch it. There were promotional posters up at the theme parks to drum up interest. There was a doll set and a Christmas ornament made to promote Queen For a Day, and after the episode aired, it was released on DVD. Tangled got its own panel at D23 Expo in 2017.

But from what I understand from what people who worked on the series told me, DTVA has a tendency to promote the newest, shiniest thing for a season, then turn its attention to the next big thing. In Tangled's case, the next big thing was DuckTales, which aired almost exactly five months after Tangled did. I guess numbers weren't quite where Disney wanted them to be, because despite pre-approving three seasons, they slowed on making merch after S1. I mean, a few things still came through for S2. There's the LEGO set of the caravan, for example. It seemed to me that they didn't catch the audience they were aiming for (girls from 6 - 12) and they didn't know what to do with the audience they grabbed (teens and young adults).

So, they stopped promoting it, stopped making merch of it (and what little merch was made wasn't aimed at the viewing demographic, but the target one), and what shot itself the most in the foot, they started changing the day and time they were airing it, pushing it more and more into time slots aimed at the target demographic instead of leaning into the curve and switching their focus to the demographic actually watching. New episodes aired on a moving target. If you weren't already keyed in to when they were coming out, it was difficult to figure out when it would be, because it kept changing. I had crew members tell me that they only way they knew when the episodes were airing was because of my blog. Sometimes they ran reruns, most of the time they did not. And when they did run reruns, it was in the middle of the day, when the only kids home were kindergarten-age. And when the series was on hiatus, reruns didn't air at all. This was no way to grab new viewers who might just happen to stumble upon it. At this point, the only way to watch it was to do so deliberately, either getting your butt up at 7 am on a Sunday or turning on DisneyNOW or your cable provider to watch it as soon as it dropped at midnight. The fandom had viewing parties, for goodness sake.

And then, Disney decided to blitz through the last part of S2 (after a six-month hiatus) and the first part of S3 in bomb format. The last part of S2 aired two episodes back to back, once a week. The first part of S3 aired them one right after another on consecutive week days before hitting us with a three month hiatus. Disney seemed to be done with it, and just running out the clock until the series was over. As a fan, it was an exhausting schedule to keep up. Even when it returned to its one episode a week format, it still aired first thing in the morning on Sundays.

It can't have helped that this aired when it did, societally-speaking. Things were rapidly moving from being aired on TV to being launched exclusively online. They were really trying to promote the use of DisneyNOW, and in the middle of Tangled's run, Disney+ launched.

Anyway, TL;DR, Disney didn't like the numbers it was showing by the end of S1, and so they stopped promoting it and started changing what day and time the episodes aired, which can't have helped those numbers. Instead of trying to make it better, they gave it up as a lost cause and made it worse.

#Tangled #Tangled the Series #TTS #TV Schedule #Answered

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robotsandramblings · 8 months

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this is a purely self-indulgent post, that i'm posting here for self reference lol :P don't mind me!

(it's continuing from a previous post where, in the tags, i was trying to figure out exactly when i got into the Star Wars tv shows specifically! -i've been a fan of the movies for literal decades, having been introduced to the original trilogy in the mid 1990s. [yes i old lmao.] -but i never watched Clone Wars or Rebels when they first aired; i've actually only been involved with the tv shows, books and comics within the last 5 years or so! -so below is my self journey to determine exactly when i started watching that stuff! it's literally just blahblahblah random irrelevant information, for my own reference)

the final answer, for those who care, lol: Spring (Apr/May) 2020! so not even 5 years really??! wow, it feels like so much longer!!!

so yes, Spring 2020 (April & moreso May) is when i really got into the TV side of things. i had plans for many years to check out Clone Wars and Rebels, and i remember hearing all the big news and hype about TCW Season 7 in 2018-2019, which made me really say "ok i need to check this out!"

but The Mandalorian was actually my first SW tv show ever! yet i don't think i watched it right away lol?? it aired Nov-Dec 2019, but i wasn't reblogging Mando content until April 2020. (checks archives: yep, still mostly into Transformers! and even a fair amount of Voltron ahahaha oh god.)

so i also didn't watch Clone Wars S7 while it aired, which i knew. ironically, i did start the series from the beginning at the same time the S7 finale aired! (i found a text post dated May 2nd 2020.) no doubt it was all the buzz about the finale that really pushed me to check out the series!!

and then i found another text post from Nov 11 2020 saying i had just finished the emotional Season 5 finale. and with Season 6 only have 13 episodes, i'm sure i finished that one soonafter...and i'm guessing i finally got to Season 7 in Nov-Dec 2020. (i keep track of everything i read in Goodreads, and it says i read Son of Dathomir mid-Nov, and then Ahsoka mid-Dec. most likely S7 was sandwiched inbetween them.)

then Jan or Feb 2021 was Rebels. (again, per my books read, i read the Kanan comics and started the Thrawn novels in February. i know by then i was following a chronological list of media, and i would have read the Thrawn books in prep for Rebels S3.)

and for whatever reason, i just wasn't reblogging TCW nor Rebels on my tumblr - not until Sept 2021. i think i was waiting to finish Bad Batch S1 in its entirety first??? (finale was mid-Aug 2021.)

a fun side story, a strong memory of mine: when The Bad Batch trailer was released in April 2021, i remember Rex had his little 1 second cameo, and the sheer excitement that i felt!!!!!, and how the whole fandom was losing our minds!!!!!!!

anyways, it's most likely i made sure to have Rebels finished by the time Bad Batch premiered on May 4th 2021.

and then i immediately was reblogging SO MUCH Bad Batch, and like i said earlier, it's when i started reblogging TCW and Rebels as well. (i never really did a proper Rebels lookthrough of the tags and such, i don't think??? i really should! with my 2nd rewatch i'm still trying to do LMAO!)

and then, in terms of books, after the Thrawn trilogy, i was really only doing the encyclopedias and art books for awhile, until summer 2021 when i did Dark Disciple, which started my official foray into the disney canon novels!

there you go Rora, now you have a reference post for every time you're like "how long have i been into TCW, Rebels, Bad Batch????" because it really does feel like forever already! <3

#im sorry if this ends up in the shows tags hgfdfghjkl i jsut want to tag them for my own ref #R&Rpersonal #rorambles #personal ref #reference #timeline #star wars #the clone wars #rebels #the bad batch #the mandalorian

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theninjazebra · 9 months

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As someone who has watched too much tv for a long time i thought i should share with the group.

TV recs for the upcoming drought:

Some of these are harder to find, the tone and quality vary wildly, they're in no specific order. I tried for not too obscure, but not too obvious. Some are still airing, some are 20 yrs old. I swear I have a life.

Slings and Arrows. Early 2000s Canadian dramedy about theatre and shakespear. Fun without being shallow, aged ok, lovely performances, great writing. nuclear grade comfort watching.

Halt and Catch Fire. 2014 - 2017, US drama. Follows four characters through the 80s tech industry. First time I got the hype around Lee Pace. S1 is ok, but nothing special, s2 is a lot more interesting but kinda goes round in a circle. S3 and 4 and some of the best tv I've ever seen.

Somebody Somewhere. This is actually a new show, but has 2 seasons out if u want a gentle but never shallow comedy. Fills my sad gay heart with joy. And if want more new tv with middle aged gays Deadloch is streaming on amazon atm.

The Expanse. Finished recently. The sci fi I've always wanted. Big and scary and wonderful and pew pew pew space battles and adventure. Balances the grim with a surprising amount of hope? Has repeated themes of redemption. Also a whole book series should u need more.

This Is England. UK drama. A film and 3 mini series set from 1983 through to 1990. Grim, sad af, also funnyand sweet? And characters that I love. The start of my undying love for Vicky McClure. Big ol CW for violence, sexual violence, and era specific racism (esp the first film). Very good, but very hard tv.

Kingdom. 2014. Can be a pain to find because so many shows are called Kingdom. About MMA fighters having drama. Also families, mental health, addiction, etc. Excellent performances. Both a very dumb and very sweet, painful show.

Animal Kingdom. Legit only watched it because I was searched Kingdom posts and AK was out around the same time. Awful family having drama and heists. Adaptation of an Aussie film into a southern California TV show. Kind of a mess? but very compelling mess.

Obligatory Succession (Kardashians for annoying people, aka me. I am the annoying person. this is my perfect tv show), The Bear, (hospo stress and family grief show) and Severance (people talk about workplace horror, but tbh it also gives big mega church horror vibes too)- new shows that live up to the hype, esp if you like sad people. I don't think they really need recs, but i really liked them.

The Thick of It. 2000s UK political comedy? Tragedy? Though these days it looking fuckin utopian compared to UK politics now. Feels a bit like a partial villain origin story for Succession. I like how sad and broken hearted it is.

Outrageous Fortune. 2000s nz dramedy that is the source of my love of family crime drama. Aged badly in places, but still very good character drama. Also, for The Boys fans, Antony Starr at his absolute best. It's a big nostalgia fest for me now. Cheryl West is a forever fav.

Justified. 2010 - 2016ish. i'm lazy i'm not looking stuff up. Yes a cop show, yes a dad show, but also rock solid tv writing and timothy olyphant in a hat. I've watched it so many times, and every time it rewards. and yes, am watching Justified City Primeval atm.

White Collar. A dumb, total fantasy art crimes and capers show. Shit, but if you need to not think and also have Matt Bomer do a shirtless painting montage for vague plot reasons then oh boy there is no other.

Being Human UK. A ghost, a vampire and a werewolf share a flat. it's sweet and agonising and 10+ years later I still love these characters so much.

Legion. 2017 - 2019. Why make tv comic adaptations that are trying for realistic and boring? When they could all be like this? Why make anything that isn't as visually interesting as this?

Doom Patrol - same for doom patrol - superhero tv that cut out the boring bits and just went for the weird and painful. I read a couple of random doom patrols years ago and was so surprised and delighted and loved them. the tv show has the same effect.

The Boys. new, and still going, as far as I know. but two kiwi leads means under nz law i have to be a fan? also it's awful, pulpy vicious popcorn viewing. appeals to the shithead 12 yr old in me. yes, it's vicious anti corporate thing is deeply ironic for an amazon show, but considering amazon saved the expanse with no sense of irony at all I figure take all their money and keep yelling.

Preacher. Another comics adaption. The Boy's weirder, less obscene, more disturbing cousin. Tulip is another forever fav tv character.

Banshee. Continuing the tradition of heth and i starting dumb Dude TV and then getting overly attached. kinda pulpy trash, but if you can stomach the violence it's surprisingly good.

All Star Treks. I love them so much. They're so weird, and uneven, and dumb, and they're all the best and I love them.

One season wonders -

Trust. about the John Paul Getty III kidnapping. also about italian countryside.

State of Play. UK. the tv show, not the film.

I dunno. I could do a whole separate post for sit coms and brit coms and the weirder, more obscure shows and movies, but ffs this is so long.

#tv recs #see my justification is that i can draw while watching #this is my list so i doubt everything on it would appeal to anyone else #but some of it might #i fuckin love me some dramedy #i have a lot of thoughts and feelings about tv #as a medium and it's role in my weird life

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